No Transaction Fee On Basic Savings Bank Deposit (BSBD) SBI Claims

On Tuesday (November 23), the State Bank of India issued a statement in response to a news report published on November 22, 2021, saying that SBI had not reimbursed charges collected from customers on digital transactions between April 2017 and December 2019. In response to the recent digital transaction controversy, the State Bank of India (SBI) said in a declaration that it does not charge any transaction fees to its Basic Savings Bank Deposit (BSBD) customers for digital transactions, including those involving the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and RuPay debit cards.

According to a media source, an IIT research indicated that between 2017 and September 2020, SBI deducted Rs 164 crore from Jan Dhan account users. Only Rs 90 crore has been reimbursed to these account holders for transactions using UPI and Rupay cards, out of a total of 164 crore. During this interval, the bank collected Rs 17.70 from each account member. The SBI responded to the report by saying, "We reiterate that BSBD customers do not pay any charges for digital transactions including transactions using Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and RuPay debit cards."

"Bank introduced charges beyond the first 4 withdrawals in BSBD (Basic Savings Bank Deposit) accounts in the BC (Business Correspondent) channel w.e.f. June 15, 2016, in line with RBI guidelines with prior intimation to customers. A BSBD customer normally would not need to make more than four withdrawals in a month, and even if required, the same could be done from the branch without any cost," claimed SBI according to the report of ANI.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) directed banks to return charges collected on or after January 1, 2020, and as a result, Rs 90 crore was reimbursed to account holders, according to SBI. The official statement says that "CBDT on 30.08.2020 advised Banks to refund charges collected, if any, on or after 01.01.2020 on digital transactions and not to impose charges on such future transactions. Accordingly, the Bank refunded charges of Rs. 90.20 crores to the customers recovered from 01.01.2020 to 14.09.2020. The bank is only charging beyond four free cash withdrawals in the BC channel, while there are no charges if digital channels are used. The objective is to promote digital transactions towards a 'less-cash economy."